If Your Kid Eats This Book, Everything Will Still Be Okay

by Lara Zibners

I won this book from another blogger, a giveaway at Worducopia. It sat on my shelf unread far too long. I wish now I'd picked it up sooner! Written by an ER pediatrician, the book methodically goes through all the illness, accidents and just plain strange-looking things (on newborns, in particular) that might alarm parents. It tells you what to expect, what to worry about, when to call your pediatrician, when to head for the hospital, and when to just calm down and treat your kid at home. It's very informative, plus written in a friendly, straightforward style that makes it easy to understand. There's a bit of humor thrown in there as well, to lighten up what might otherwise be a stressful read. I don't know if I'd recommend reading straight through the entire thing like I did, as a bit too much knowledge on all the dangers facing your kid can make your head swim! But I learned quite a bit in the process: babies are sometimes born with a few teeth. The idea that you have to keep someone who hit their head awake is a myth. Pet reptiles (especially turtles) often carry salmonella. And much, much more. This is a book I'm definitely keeping around for reference, it's got a thorough index so you can flip quickly to any topic when you need to know something urgently. Also in the back there's a useful little section that tells you what to expect when you do have to visit the emergency room, and what procedures you might face there. I'd recommend this book to anyone with infants or young children. An invaluable resource.

rating: 4/5 ........ 305 pages, 2009

more opinions:
First-Time Mommy.com
Mama Latina

Junie B. Jones

and a Little Monkey Business

by Barbara Park

My first-grader keeps bringing Junie B. Jones home from the school library, and I keep sneaking them off her bed at night to read! They're easy to get through in one sitting, and make me chuckle. In Junie B. Jones and a Little Monkey Business, Junie is delighted when her parents announce they have a surprise for her, and upset when it turns out not to be a present. I thought the story would be about how Junie adjusted to the new baby's homecoming, or felt jealous, or something like that. But it turned out to be about how kids can misunderstand simple metaphors. In this case, due to a comment her grandmother makes, along with remarks about the amount of his hair and length of his toes, Junie becomes convinced that her baby brother is really a monkey. She's even more sure when she notices that the baby's bed looks like a cage and his room is decorated in a jungle theme. So she announces to her classmates that her brother is a monkey, and her two best friends start vying to see who gets to view the monkey brother first. Junie takes this too far when she starts collecting gifts from her friends, but a quick march to the principal and an explanation in class of common metaphors straightens things out. Quick, amusing read. My daughter got a real kick out of it, too.

rating: 3/5 ........ 68 pages, 1993

more opinions:
Becky's Lit Blog
Under the Covers

At the Farm

by Salina Yoon

This board book is just the right size for little hands, and pretty entertaining for my baby! It's a simple book, each page just has an object found on a farm- milk can, watermelon slice, sheep, tractor, etc.- one word to name it, and a bold, bright picture. What really entertains my daughter about this book is that some of the pages have shapes cut out- on one page an owl has some tear-drop shaped feathers as cut shapes, when you turn the page it's a watermelon and the cut shapes are the seeds. First the baby liked just touching the shapes, then she discovered if the page is held open a bit she can put her finger through, and then the whole thing turns into a game with her and I wiggling our fingers through the holes. It's so much fun when the book is done she wants to start all over again, several times! I think this little book is going to rival Happy Baby Colors now in her esteem.

Borrowed from the public library. Going to see if I can find more similar books by this author, but that's always hard in the baby section!

rating: 4/5 ........ 12 pages, 2011

1 Teddy Bear

by Bernette Ford

This is a cute counting book: one to ten. It features charming little teddy bears that do things together like talk on the phone, go for a hike, dance in the rain (the first page, 1 TEDDY BEAR all alone, shows a teddy reading a book, of course!). And finally on the page with ten teddies, they all climb into bed. What's better than a baby book ending with sleepy time? It's got some nice, gentle rhymes and the teddies are painted with a bit of texture, which I like. And the baby sits through it, which is even better.

rating: 3/5 ........ 18 pages, 2008

The Dragonbards

by Shirley Rousseau Murphy

I don't know why I slogged so long through this book before finally realizing it was never going to enthrall me like its predecessors.  The Dragonbards is the third in a trilogy I discovered long ago. I read the first book,  Nightpool, probably twenty years ago and loved it. I found the second book, The Ivory Lyre, some ten years later as a complete surprise (not knowing there were any sequels) and liked it, though not as much as the first. I should have known the third would be a dud, especially coming to it as an adult. This isn't the first time I've had such an experience.

It feels awkward to write about this book when I haven't said anything about the first two, but here goes. A fantasty story about good battling evil, set in a world called Tirror where dragons have recently been rediscovered along with the people who can bond with them, called bards. When the bards and dragons sing they reawaken people's memories and awareness of their history. Evil forces in this world are enslaving city after city to take over the world, using drugs to dull people's minds and make them forget their identities. The hero of the story, Tebriel, and his dragon are leading the forces of good in a battle to drive the evil out of their world. This has all the makings of a great story- wonderful dragons, intelligent talking animals (mainly otters and large cats), a love interest between two close friends who don't realize what they feel for each other until nearly the last page, plenty of action and some magic. There's even a journey through other worlds that connect through mysterious Doors (made me think of C.S. Lewis' pools) But it all fell flat for me. I just couldn't muster up any interest in the story or even the characters, although I remember loving them so well long ago. Even the interesting themes running through the story- how important memories are to identity, or how drug abuse dulls the mind, or how the hero has to battle his own pride and allows himself to be influenced by the Dark side- just didn't work for me. I kept going back to it hoping I'd find it lively again, but no. I was even afraid I'd lost my interest in reading for the time being, what with current stresses- but the book I'm reading now is going swimmingly, so it's not that at all.

No, this book is just lame. It might work for a kid, and I do hope when I go back to read the first two I still like them, but otherwise I'd say skip it. I did end up skimming the last few chapters just to find out what happened in the end, but even that wasn't very satisfying.

Abandoned ......... 249 pages, 1988

Mirror Me

I have just not been reading much lately. The one book I am reading is going slow; I'm not much interested in it, but it's the final in a series I read long ago so I do want to finish just to see how it all closes. More on that later. I've mostly been busy gardening, and the baby is still sick (going on a week now of this miserable cold). Hopefully the blog will pick up again soon!

So I looked around for one of the baby books I haven't mentioned here yet. I bought this one back when the baby was just four or five months old, to entertain her on a plane trip. I thought she would like it because of the mirrors. Turns out it didn't entertain her then, at all. But now it's her favorite book to read when she's sitting on the potty. I sit behind her and she can see my face next to her in the little mirrors- each page has one. It's cute enough- all about imitating gestures and facial expressions. Smile, stick out your tongue, make your eyes go wide. The baby's favorite is the page where a cow puffs her cheeks full of air- I always blow on her hair when I make the puff noise, and she giggles. Some of the characters are just named by their identity- Frog, Gecko, etc. But others have names- Violet the mouse, for example. I'm assuming they're characters from other Baby Einstein products, but I'm not sure.

The Solace of Open Spaces

by Gretel Ehrlich

This is a collection of essays about Wyoming. Similar to The Secret Life of Cowboys, its author was a city girl who moved to the wide open spaces and found she loved the life there. But this one doesn't focus on her journey or her personal story so much as on the landscape, the way of life, the animals, the personalities she encounters. Several essays are about sheepherding- about the work, the lonely remote camps, the eccentric herders. Other essays focus on rodeo, man's relationship with animals, the codes of conduct ranchers live by, the weather that sweeps over the land, the cattle and wildlife... She writes about several Native American communities around her- Crow and Arapaho, Cheynne and Shoshone. She attends several of their important ceremonies and describes it in detail. It's all very interesting. I was thrown off at first; the character sketches in one of the early sheepherding essays unsettled me a bit- but then I found myself enjoying her writing more and more. It's beautiful and evocative. Just this line alone in the introduction made me eager to cherish the rest of the book: The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Her words are lovely and thoughtful, harsh and piercing and grand. It was a book I read through slowly, carefully and appreciatively. May you do the same.

rating: 4/5 ......... 131 pages, 1985

more opinions:
Buddies in the Saddle
Oldwoman's Books
Sarah Sans Terre

under water

I went to a garden show this weekend. (You can see the plants I bought here on my garden blog). Loved walking through the garden displays, and I wondered how much time/work it took for people to create these elaborate setups of paths, raised beds, flowers, shrubs and even trees all growing in the exhibit space.

But this blog is about books. And I saw some there. And I involuntarily cringed. It was a display made by a company that does fountains to decorate people's yards- most incorporated into a stream or pond of some kind- and this one had a sculpture of a stack of books with water pouring over it. Very realistic-looking lovely books, with a film of water pooling at the top and cascading down the sides. I'm not kidding you, I literally flinched and quickly walked away (thus failing to get a photo to show you, I didn't even think of it). All I could think was: horrors! Those books are getting soaked! They'll be ruined. Albeit fake.

I could never imagine putting such a feature in my yard. I think it would make me uneasy every time I looked at it. What about you? Would you shrink from such a sight? or laugh at the absurdity of it?

My Mom

by Debbie Bailey

This board book that celebrates moms doing things with their children is not full of beautiful photos or adorable illustrations. Instead, the images look just like ordinary everyday snapshots you might take with your own camera. I don't know if that's because the photos are older per se, or if the photographer was going for a candid look, but I like it because it's different. It feels like anyone you could know, your friend or neighbor. It's a simple collection of pictures showing moms playing with, reading to, cooking for their children. Pushing them on the swings. Helping them get dressed. Giving a hug to a crying child. The simple text is narrated by the child: My mom is very special, We do lots of things together etc etc but the child also points out My mom lets me do things for myself, but she helps me when I need it. I like that message. And my daughter's favorite picture is of the little boy doing something for himself: a toddler standing inside the fridge to reach something. Cute.

Of course, My Mom is part of a series that includes books about grandparents, fathers and siblings which I would like to see more of. But this is the only one I've found at my library and they don't catalog the board books so I can't search for more, I just have to look on the shelf each time and take my luck.

rating: 3/5 ....... 14 pages, 1991

BIG Little

by Leslie Patricelli

I usually don't like illustrated books for the baby yet. She just doesn't seem as interested in drawings as in photos of real things, especially if they have faces. This one is just so cute, though, and the rhythm of comparisons makes it easy to adopt a little sing-song as you read aloud. It's all about similar items that are large and small: Elephants are BIG, Mice are little etc. My favorites are Ladies are BIG, Ladybugs are little and The moon is BIG, My nightlight is little. It's a bit different from the usual opposite kind of books. If you've got a little one who likes bright, simple pictures and learning about similarities between objects, BIG Little might be a good choice!

rating: 3/5 ........ 26 pages, 2003

The Secret Life of Cowboys

by Tom Groneberg

This book is one that grew on me. Don't judge The Secret Life of Cowboys by its cover or its title, because neither seem a good fit to me. It's a thoughtful, frank memoir of a man searching for a new life, trying to live his dream. Groneberg has always wanted to be a cowboy, to live close to cattle and horses, to love the land. He gets a job leading trail rides for tourists, then works as a hired hand on a ranch, and finally gets his dream- a ranch of his very own. But all along he struggles to fit in, to learn skills kids around him have mastered, to understand simple things that no one bothers to explain because they assume it's common knowledge. He struggles at managing the ranch. The ending surprised me. It's not all happy. Love for the big open skies, wide fields and animals shines through the pages, but so does the heartache at difficulties and failings. I kept thinking of Jenna as I read this book; she's another person who had a dream to live a life different than the one she was raised with, and just went for it. In some ways their stories are quite similar.

rated: 3/5 ........ 257 pages, 2003

more opinions at:
Buddies in the Saddle
Cataloger's Reading List

Junie B. Jones

and her Big Fat Mouth

by Barbara Park

This one was pretty good. In Junie B. Jones and her Big Fat Mouth, our little protagonist can't decide what she wants to be when she grows up. All her classmates have picked things like artist, superhero, guard, princess, fireman, etc. Junie B. wants a job that uses all the things she finds attractive- paintbrushes are cool, so are rings of keys, and she'd love to help save people. Can she figure out a job that encompasses all her passions? I really liked how Junie B. highlighted a blue-collar job that the kids at first laughed at, but in the end they recognized how important it was to the normal functioning of their very own school. And in the meantime Junie B. has a new grown-up friend and role model. Sure she has a smart mouth and says things like "stupid" and "hate" but kids can be like that. As long as yours recognizes that Junie is misbehaving, I think they can see the humor in the book and this one happens to have a really good message too. I wonder if the title could be more appropriate, though. It doesn't quite seem to fit what the story is actually about.

rating: 4/5 ........ 69 pages, 1993

Junie B. Jones

and the Stupid Smelly Bus

by Barbara Park

I believe this is the first book in the Junie B. Jones series. Another one my daughter brought home from school and I sneaked off her bed to read (in one sitting) later at night. I didn't find it as funny as Sneaky Peeky Spying, that one made me laugh out loud a lot, this one I think I only really chuckled once. But it did get lots of smiles, a quick little fun read. So, in  Junie B. Jones and the Stupid Smelly Bus the little girl is nervous about her first day of kindergarten. She's afraid to get on that yellow bus. And when she does ride it to school, it's miserably hot, uncomfortable and the girl with curly hair doesn't want to share a seat. At school she hears more about big meanies who do things to little kids on the bus, so she decides she's simply not going to ride it home. She hides in a supply closet instead, and when everyone leaves has a little fun playing in the classroom. But then an emergency arises (of the bathroom kind) and Junie B. realizes all the doors are locked! She's alone in the empty school. What will she do?

Of course, her parents are frantic with worry but Junie B. is a smart little cookie and she finds some quick help. Roundly scolded for giving everyone a scare, and comes to terms with that big yellow bus- especially when a new friend named Grace promises to share her seat. I think we'll see more of Grace in books to come.

rating: 3/5 ....... 69 pages, 1992

The Peacock Spring

by Rumer Godden

Another book which has been quietly languishing on my shelf. The Peacock Spring was slow to get into, but the more I read the more curious I got about it. The story is of two girls in their early teens who get abruptly pulled out of boarding school to go live with their diplomat father in India. It soon becomes clear to them that their governess is incompetent at teaching, and is in fact their father's mistress. The older girl, Una, is indignant at the sham, while the younger one, Hal, couldn't care less. Hal is thrilled with the sightseeing and parties the governess is trying to distract them with; Una is frustrated at being denied her studies. The better part of the first half of the book is about this subtle battle going on between the girls and the governess, made more interesting by the fact that all the servants resent the woman too, and the girls' father is pretty much oblivious to it all. But then something curious happens. Una meets a gardener who also happens to be a poet, and whose friend is an accomplished mathematician. Suddenly she finds a way to circumvent her governess and continue her studies. What she doesn't really expect is to fall in love...

While this story is not exactly tender, nor are most of the characters extremely likable, there was something about it that kept me intrigued. The further I got the more tangled it all became, until in the end Una was in quite a sticky situation. The ending was quite sad. I found myself feeling sympathy for characters I really didn't like in the beginning, and getting furious at others that I had previously admired. They're all quite deep characters, with layers and ulterior motives and secret thoughts and dumb moments, just like real people... This is not one of my favorite Rumer Godden books, but one I'm certainly hanging onto regardless. I wonder when I'll pick it up again, what new things I might see in its pages.

rating: 3/5 ........ 243 pages, 1975

more opinions at:
Jenny's Books
Miss Darcy's Library
Golgonooza

Brum! and Vroom!

by Leo Timmers

Brum! and  Vroom! are two more little board books that feature silly animals driving vehicles with various sound effects. Only I didn't like these two as much as Toot! There is only one sound for each book, that of the title, repeated on every page. I preferred Toot! which had a different sound for each vehicle. I had to make up little phrases to go with each picture, in singsong, to keep my child's interest. Regardless, the pictures are still adorable- there's a rhino driving a sports car, a forklift carrying a hippo, a front-loader carrying a heap of soil and earthworms, etc. It's charming, but just not quite as engaging as the previous book.

rating: 2/5 ........ 14 pages each, 2009

Produce

A Fruit and Vegetable Lover's Guide

by Bruce Beck

This is another one of those coffee-table books that's been sitting around my house forever. It's too awkward to read while nursing the baby (my prime reading time these days) so I've only been getting to it in snatches here and there. You'd think that a book about foodstuffs isn't that interesting, but Produce was quite a good read, considering.

It is a large, heavy book full of stunning photographs by Andrew Unagst, all featuring vegetables, fruits and greens. Each item gets a good description, including different varieties, their origins and curious things about their culinary history, what foods they pair well with or how they are often prepared, how to choose the best ones from the market, how to keep them fresh at home, and at what season they are most readily available. It's got every single produce item you could think of, from plain old bananas and apples to arugula, watercress and a huge assortment of herbs, to unfamiliar exotics like cherimoya or starfruit. I even learned quite a few things about produce, such as that cantaloupe is (supposedly) good eaten sprinkled with salt and pepper, lettuce can be put into soup (!), melons are often carved into decorative bowls (look at this amazing watermelon turtle), and the Greeks and Romans use to wear parsley garlands at parties, because they believed it would keep them from getting drunk. There are charming, whimsical little line drawings illustrating each page, as well. And a sprinkling of humor to boot.

One thing I didn't understand was why most of the herbs were combined into a crowded two-page spread, while parsley, basil and watercress each got their own spot. Also, I couldn't find olives. I looked in the index, thinking maybe I'd missed it somehow, as a few of the items were on a page with relatives (plantains with bananas, for example). Nope, no olives. The book does show its age a little, as the author makes comments on some exotic produce items being almost completely unavailable, whereas I've seen them frequently in the supermarket. Anyhow, if you're interested in the history of produce, or want a few hints on how to use certain veggie items, or just like to drool over wonderful photographs, this is a pretty good book!

rating: 4/5 ........ 213 pages, 1984

An Episode of Sparrows

by Rumer Godden

I'm glad that I finally read this book. It was lovely, and one I kept wanting to go back to, eager to open the pages again and find out what was happening to those characters. Even though their edges are somewhat prickly, they were characters I came to feel for in just a short space of time. It's been a while since I felt that way about a book.

An Episode of Sparrows is about a poor girl in post-war England. Her mother, a traveling singer, has pretty much abandoned her to the care of a couple who run a restaurant. She is feeling lonely, yet has her own kind of pride and stubbornly insists on doing things for herself. She swipes a packet of flower seed from another child in the street and out of curiosity decides to plant them. After several failed attempts, she finds a spot in the rubble behind an old church to make a little hidden garden, enlisting the help of Tip, a local gang leader, and questioning a recalcitrant gardener she finds in the neighborhood to learn how to grow plants and care for them. It was quite wonderful to watch her little garden unfold, although she had to fight for it every step of the way. Her hopes kept getting set higher and higher, as she kept finding better things to grow, and finally coveted a small rosebush. Stealing soil from the gardens of a public square for her rose, she and the other children finally get caught and have to face some dire consequences. My heart wrung for this plucky little girl. I couldn't help feel for the man Vincent who ran the restaurant she lived in, too. He had lofty dreams as well, riddled with unlucky circumstances but undiscouraged. It's really a quite tender story, about connections and people finding they do care for each other, in spite of all their wrongs. It made me eager to find another Rumer Godden to read. I think I have the Peacock Spring on my shelf as well, must go look for it now...

rating: 4/5 ........ 247 pages, 1955

more opinions at:
Harriet Devine's Blog
Literary Afterthought
a pile of leaves

In the Garden with Van Gogh

by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober

I was delighted to find another one of the Mini Masters series shelved among the board books at the library. Snatched up In the Garden with Van Gogh to bring home and share with my baby. Unfortunately, she wasn't quite as thrilled as I was. Like Quiet Time with Cassatt, each spread pairs a famous painting with gentle, rhyming text that describes it. I thought it was lovely, I'm not quite sure why the baby didn't like it (and hers is the opinion that really counts, as I won't check out books again if I think she won't enjoy them. Many are the ones we've checked out numerous times, met with recognition, little happy clapping hands.) Maybe I just sat down at the wrong moments with her, and she was distracted. Maybe she's just not interested in wavery, textured pictures of plants, flowers and landscapes. I did think it would be an even stronger book if the paintings were arranged in a more chronological order: the one about sowing seeds comes after the ones about gathering fruit, for example. Not that a child would notice, though. I did love the painting of a child just learning to walk, toddling through a garden guided by its mother's hands.

rating: 2/5 ........ 22 pages, 2002

more opinions at:
Eye Level Books
A Class of Her Own

The Adventures of Johnny Chuck

by Thornton W. Burgess

In The Adventures of Johnny Chuck we meet a stout little woodchuck who has been struck with a sudden fit of wanderlust in the springtime. He encounters an older chuck with whom he fights, then another younger chuck- who turns out to be a female. The two make an acquaintance, Johnny Chuck impresses Polly, and they search for a place to make a new home together. This turns out to be in a remote corner of the orchard, for Johnny Chuck wants his privacy now. Meanwhile, as Johnny has been having adventures and finding love, his friends back home are wondering what became of him. Sammy Jay discovers his new home, and intends to make mischief for Johnny Chuck. But he's burning with curiosity to know why Johnny is being so secretive. When he finally finds out, Sammy has a sudden change of heart...

Another delightful Burgess story that uses real wildlife behavior and interactions to teach lessons of friendship and kindness.

rating: 4/5 ....... 88 pages, 1913

The Adventures of Buster Bear

by Thornton W. Burgess

There is a new animal in the forest: Buster Bear. All the smaller animals are afraid of him, especially after they see how he bullies little Joe Otter to get his fish for breakfast. Thus they are quite gleeful to discover that Buster is afraid of the farmer's boy, and shocked to discover that the boy is likewise afraid of Buster! What happens when bear and boy encounter each other in the blueberry patch is quite comical.  I enjoyed this story quite as much as the previous one. The animals all like to pull pranks on each other and tease, but in the end it turns out they're quite good-hearted.

rating: 4/5 ........ 80 pages, 1916